The Creative Spirit

Last weekend I took my daughter to see the animated movie Ratatouille, and I was blown away. I’d expected a light PG romp about Disneyfied animals who have crazy adventures in Paris. I didn’t realize I was going to be treated to a meditation on creativity and artistic expression in a subtle and highly mature way.

For those who haven’t seen it, Ratatouille is the story of Remy, a rat born with a sophisticated palate. Unfortunately rats aren’t picky about their food–they eat to live, after all, not live to eat, and his finicky tastebuds are misunderstood by his rat-pack. In a series of events, he’s separated from the pack and forced to survive on the streets of Paris. There he befriends a talentless pot-scrubber and transforms him into a master chef by controlling him via his hair (don’t ask, just see the movie).

Remy’s inspiration is the angel of a dead 5-star chef, Gusteau, who’s mantra is “anyone can cook.” Remy the rat believes this to be so and the muse of Gusteau gives him the courage to experiment with food. But what the movie also makes clear is that desire, pluck, and luck simply isn’t enough to become a great artist. One must also have the talent.

And that’s where writer/animator Brad Bird‘s movie stops being a simplistic fable exhorting children to follow their hearts. Some will follow their hearts, but they will never achieve greatness unless they have that indefinable something that separates a hack from an artist (there’s a hack in the movie too, Remy’s nemesis, a chef interested in selling out Gusteau’s reputation for money, not artistry).

The movie got me thinking about the creative spirit. We writers write for the high we receive from indulging our creativity. Many of us will never be recognized. Some of us will achieve a modest success. Still fewer the recognition that we are artists. And yet, we “rats” are moved by the creative spirit despite our lowly origins. Chef Gusteau might say that “anyone can write.” Well, not really. Only those who listen to the creative spirit inside, and who can shush the inner critic, can write.

If you haven’t seen Ratatouille yet, make it a point to do so. The storytelling clips along at a fast pace, and the animation is breathtaking. You’ll come away from the film feeling good that you honor the creative spirit inside you every time you sit down to work on your writing. I certainly did.

Kathleen Bolton

Kathleen Bolton is co-founder of Writer Unboxed. She writes under a variety of pseudonyms, including Ani Bolton.

She has written two novels as Cassidy Calloway: Confessions of a First Daughter, and Secrets of a First Daughter–both books in a YA series about the misadventures of the U.S. President’s teen-aged daughter, published by HarperCollins, and Tamara Blake, for the novel Slumber.

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